Astronomers have used the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes to confirm one of the most troubling conundrums in all of physics — that the universe appears to be expanding at bafflingly different speeds depending on where we look.
This problem, known as the Hubble Tension, has the potential to alter or even upend cosmology altogether. In 2019, measurements by the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the puzzle was real; in 2023, even more precise measurements from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) cemented the discrepancy.
Now, a triple-check by both telescopes working together appears to have put the possibility of any measurement error to bed for good. The study, published February 6 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests that there may be something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe.
Normally yes, but if an exception was found then that too would fundamentally change what we think we know. I doubt it will come down to anything quite that simple, but on the other hand gravity is one of those forces that we still don’t completely understand and when dealing with things on a galactic scale perhaps this new observation will start to crack open that particular mystery. It’s easy to speculate at this point, but really my hope is that this will lead to a better understanding of something huge. I think the most boring outcome of this would be something like “oops we made a mistake in our math.”